Tuesday, November 30, 2010

If you haven't checked the website out lately, please DO!!!! Monthly newsletters are added regularly. The photos have been updated with ones from the Fall 2010 meeting. There is lots of good information, links to our recipient organizations and much much more. Tom Eckhardt has done a great job in getting all this information in an easily accessible format. It has saved me hours of time emailing people info. Now I just direct them to the website. THANKS TOM!!! www.projectlinuseasttn.org

Quilters: Check out this website. Lots of neat stuff. Checkout the Quick Points Rules under Tools and Rulers (click in box on left of web page). I was really impressed with these at the quilt show in Knoxville this summer. http://www.popsbindings.com/ - Deb

I bought some of these pins/earrings at the Knoxville quilt show last summer and again this summer. The colors are vibrant and quality good. A great idea for a Christmas present for or from a quilter. http://quiltedinclay.com/ - Deb

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Please have all blankets dropped off for the year by Saturday, November 13th. Blankets should NOT be dropped again at our drop-off locations until Monday, January 3rd. This provides room at our drop-off facilities for extra collections and projects they have going on over the holidays. Thank you.

Our Fall Meeting is Saturday, October 30th. The meeting will be at the Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church at 6900 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN. This is where we’ve had it the last couple of times. As you come in to the parking lot, go around to the left of the Church and park near the big glass door entrance on the side of the building. Please do not park in the front of the Church since their Pumpkin Festival will be going on. The meeting will be from 10 AM – Noon. We will have a guest speaker – Shannon McCloud from one of our recipient organizations – A Secret Safe Place for Newborns of Tennessee. If you want, come prepared with needle and thimble to help sew on labels. I hope to see you there. Light refreshments will be served. Call if you get lost or have questions. 865 719-2862.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Project Linus Institute 2011 is open to all PL volunteers. There is a lot of information available at the Project Linus website (click on Institute 2011 on the left hand side). Here are some basic details:

When: July 20 – 23, 2011

Where: Hotel Pere Marquette, Peoria, IL

How Far is that? Approximately 570 miles; 9 hours per Map Quest from Knoxville

Cost for Volunteers: $525 ($500 if you register before 12/31/10). This includes Wednesday Dinner reception, Thursday lunch, Friday lunch and dinner, Saturday brunch and dinner. And, most importantly, the Institute conference.

Hotel Costs: $109 plus taxes per night (single or multiple occupancy)

Extra classes will be available on Wednesday afternoon for a fee (TBA). Lunch is also available on Wednesday for $20.

This is a wonderful conference with all kinds of classes, booths to browse (fabric, quilt machines, sewing tools and much more), make-and-takes (quilt, crochet, knit, sewing, etc.) There will be a special session for volunteers. The Friday evening speaker is Jennifer Chiaverini author of the Elm Creek Quilt book series, and a fabric and quilt designer.

I know this is expensive and not affordable and/or of interest to everyone. But, if you are interested, I encourage you to think about attending. If any volunteers are interested, we can discuss car pooling. My tentative plans are to leave Tuesday AM, drive to around Indianapolis on Tuesday, and drive on in to Peoria on Wednesday AM. I plan to get up early Sunday and drive all the way home.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Our Fall Meeting is SET for Saturday, October 30th. The meeting will be at the Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church at 6900 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN. This is where we’ve had it the last couple of times. As you come in to the parking lot, go around to the left of the Church and park near the big glass door entrance. Please do not park in the front of the Church since their Pumpkin Festival will be going on. The meeting will be from 10 AM – Noon. We will have a guest speaker – Shannon McCloud from one of our recipient organizations – A Secret Safe Place for Newborns of Tennessee. If you want, come prepared with needle and thimble to help sew on labels. I hope to see you there. Call me if you get lost or have questions. 865 719-2862.-Deb

Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores® is pleased to offer an exciting contest for crafters called "Craft for a Cause," where you could win a $1,500 Jo-Ann gift card! Here is how it works:• Purchase materials from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores• Make a blanket for Project Linus• Submit necessary entry information to Jo-AnnAs part of this fabulous contest your blanket made for the contest and donated to Project Linus gives us an entry in their favorite charity contest. The top three charities receiving the most donated items then become finalists. At that point crafters go to Jo-Ann's website to cast their vote. The top charity receiving the most votes wins $50,000.The crafting contest is going on now and ends October 30, 2010. Charity voting ends on December 4, 2010.For more details, including online entry and contest rules, refer to the Jo-Ann "Craft for a Cause" web page. http://mail.google.com/a/projectlinuseasttn.org/?tab=3m#inbox/12ac450170512f47

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Patti and Deb went to the show last weekend. Under 20 small quilts, but they were worth seeing. Also the gift shop was very nice. It's close to the Museum of Appalachia. Also close to Golden Girls and Harrisons - both good places to eat. They also have a quilt trail square on the side of the building! A nice 1/2 day outing!!!!

They were invented by the Sacramento Project Linus coordinator. Here's more info from her about them:

Some of you might remember that I invented the "Cane Sweater" 2 years agowhen my dad needed to start using a cane. What started out as kind of afamily joke has turned into a wonderful venture! We have our own website(www.canesweaters.com) and all proceeds go to Project Linus! Well, lastyear, I entered it in the Michael's/Vanna's Choice contest and was just informed that I won 3rd prize! Wow! What an honor! I'm way down the pictures on their site, but we're there! Check outhttp://www.vannaschoice.com/ I wish they had put in the story of its creation to get more publicity for Project Linus, though!Claire Gliddon, CoordinatorProject Linus - Sacramento

Hi everyone,Every so often our local Brother Sewing Machine dealer offers some sweet deals to Project Linus folks. In addition to all of the other support they give us, she asked me to pass along that they have the following:Carol,Could you let your coordinators or mailing list know that the PE200 Snoopy machines are still available. They are embroidery only and have the Charles Schultz' characters built in, including Linus & hisblanket. They are $500 @ with $25 shipping. If they have anyquestions, they can call me at 1-800-962-7180.Vicky Hartley, Galesburg Sewing Center

Friday, June 4, 2010

Author Jennifer Chiaverini is teaming up with Project Linus to offer Elm Creek Readers the chance to decide whether Sarah’s twins will be boys, girls, or one of each! If you've not read any of these books, I highly recommend them - they are great novels with a good story line, some history, some quilting info (even for you non-quilters), etc.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

TAPS http://www.taps.org/) is a wonderful organization endorsed by the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Project Linus is pleased to support this organization by sending red, white and blue blankets to be given to children/grandchildren/siblings of fallen soldiers that attend the Good Grief Camps. These are pictures of some of the 70 blankets we sent this year.

My Dear Friends: I always say I have the most caring, generous readers in the world, and now's the time for all of you who knit or crochet to prove I'm right! I invite you to pick up your needles and join me in helping infants and children in need across the country in an initiative worthy of our time, talent and yarn. That initiative is KNIT1, BLESS2, a Mother's Day outreach that will provide our hand-knitted and crocheted baby blankets and garments to three national charities that help these precious, needy children. The three organizations are: Newborns in Need, Project Linus and The Binky Patrol. Mother's Day is a very special time for me. I'm usually on tour in May promoting my new book, but I always make it a point to be home on that special Sunday to celebrate with my children and grandchildren and honor the memory of my own mother. This year, I thought about the babies born into this world who may not have all of the advantages that my own children and I enjoyed. I wanted to find a way to help—and knitting for charity has always been one of my passions. I realized that, working together, we could make an extraordinary difference in many children's lives. KNIT1, BLESS2 was created as a focus for the effort. Please choose a project—no matter how small or large—and sign up below. Use a pattern you have on-hand—or check out the websites for the three charities—some patterns are posted there. Recommended items: blankets, preemie caps, sweaters, and bibs. As part of KNIT1, BLESS2, Leisure Arts, which publishes my pattern booklets, is making Knit Along With Debbie Macomber, A Charity Guide For Knitters available from March 1 to May 1, 2010, at LeisureArts.com at a special price of $12.50 ($4.45 off the regular retail price of $16.95. Enter Coupon Code DMACB.) The collection includes patterns and information for a variety of organizations. All of my proceeds from my licensed products, including the Leisure Arts Knit Along series, go to charity.Thank you in advance for being a part of KNIT1, BLESS2 and I hope to see you on tour for my new book!

In the midst of all the Disney and Haiti blanket collections, we celebrated National Make A Blanket Day with a Quilt Challenge rather than another blanket day (we had already had 4 in the previous month or so with lots of press.) The challenge is being sponsored by one of our local quilt shops, and the Komfort Kids fabric line was the challenge fabric. The entries are hanging in our public library, with our PL banner, all of March and April. Kids are the judges - there are some tickets and a voting box for them to vote for the one they like the most.We had a few entries, and I've put photos on our website. If you'd like to see them, the address is...http://projectlinusgreatfalls.giving.officelive.com/MABDQuiltChallenge.aspx-- *Gina Loss - Coordinator*Project Linus - Great Falls, MT

Sunday, March 28, 2010

A few weeks ago, Mary and I were contacted by a well known literary agent in New York. I don't think she realized that she would be making a dream of ours come true, but she did! For years, we have planned, dreamed, hoped to write a book about the Project Linus story. Well, this was our invitation to do just that and we couldn't be more excited. Preliminary plans are for a book with stories, beautiful pictures and of course, blanket patterns. If all goes well, this will be just the first of a series. Our first book will be about quilts, but we hope that additional books about knitting, crocheting and other blanket methods will follow.What we would really like to do is include a lot of patterns from Project Linus volunteers and chapter coordinators. We need your help! If you would like to submit a pattern idea, we would love to hear from you. It could be your pattern idea or a volunteer, but it has to be ORIGINAL, and UNPUBLISHED. It doesn't have to be in a pattern format for now. You can include drawings, pictures, and just a description, or if you already have it in pattern format that is great too. Email to Mary at mary@projectlinus.org. We need your ideas by April 15, 2010, and remember this is just quilting patterns for now. We'll ask for additional pattern ideas for other techniques later. If your pattern is chosen we will contact you to discuss details.

Project Linus of East Tennessee Website

Project Linus National Website

Making Comments to the Blog

I've tried to make it easier for you to comment on the blog. Select "comment" under the post you are reading. Where it says "select profile" you have some options. The easiest is to select annonymous, but then be sure to sign at least your first name at the end of your comment. If you have AOL, select AIM and put in your screen name. For many email addresses, you can select Open ID or for a Google address, select Google. It will then step you thru the process. Don't get frustrated - just pick "annonymous" and sign your name at the end of your comment if you can't make anything else work.

Tips on Viewing Pictures in Smilebox

Just click on the "play" button once. Don't click again on the advertisement. Just wait for the pics to start showing!